


Lavender's Blue

by Magnetism_bind



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friendship, Loss of Trust, slowly starting relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 21:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/pseuds/Magnetism_bind
Summary: Abigail finds it hard to settle back into society after her ordeal with the pirates, but a friendship with a girl in her father's house shows her there is hope.





	Lavender's Blue

 

Abigail spends the first day in her father's house in her room. It feels very close and confined after the freedom of the pirate ship. She wants to get out, to walk somewhere, anywhere, but that would require speaking to her father, and that's something she doesn't want to do right now. Not after last night. Not after the events of yesterday. 

The pirate captain she had heard so much about, had been nothing like she had expected. Mrs. Hamilton had been a blurred but good memory in her mind. But Captain Flint was new.

There's a soft knock at the door and a head in a cap peeks through. "I was wondering if maybe you'd like to take tea in the back garden, miss?"

"I..." Abigail hesitates. "I'd like that. Thank you..."

"It's Mary, miss." A tinge of pink colors her cheeks. "Mary Simmons. I'm the kitchenmaid here, miss."

 Abigail follows her down the hall, down the back stairs and into a small but well ordered garden. The air is fresher there and she finds she can breathe freely without acquiring a headache. There's a small stone bench and Mary gestures to it. "I'll bring out a tray with some tea."

"Thank you." Abigail sits under the pomegranate trees and wonders if anything will ever truly make sense again. The last few weeks have been appalling and terrifying, but the last few days on Captain Flint's ship were strangely freeing. Now she looks around the walls of the garden, at the tall oppressive building of her father's house and knows what her future will hold if she does nothing. She will stay here, a prisoner of society and her father's household until she is married off to someone rich enough to please her father, and then she will his wife, and there is nothing left after that. No hope, no dreams, no future. 

She watches Mary as she brings out the tray. "Here you go, miss. A fresh pot of tea and some nice scones, that's what you're wanting. You look a bit peaked."

"Thank you." Abigail says, and then, "Would you sit a while, Mary?" She finds the girl's freckled cheerful face soothing, and the accent, half London, half island, soothing as well.

"Sit here, with you, miss?" Mary pauses, and then shrugs her slender shoulders, "All right." She sits beside Abigail, and after a moment she removes her cap. Her hair is a dark russet brown and Abigail has the strangest urge to run her fingers through it. Mary is about her own age, and clearly she has not had a pampered life in London the way Abigail has, but at the moment Abigail is jealous of her. She's familiar with this island. She's at home here.

"Do you like working for my father?" 

Mary's brow furrows."Like it..."

"You don't have to answer that." Abigail adds hastily. The last thing she wants is to make the other girl uncomfortable. "I spoke thoughtlessly." She suddenly doesn't want to know the answer. If Mary's unhappy, if her father treats her poorly, she doesn't know if she'll be able to bear it. One more injustice, one more ache upon her soul.

"It's not the worst position, miss." Mary says at last. "I've known far crueler masters, that's for certain."

"I see." It's not the most glowing recommendation, but Abigail doesn't press the matter. It tells her enough for now.

"What about you, miss?" 

"Me?"

"Are you happy to be here with your father after all this time?"

Abigail hasn't even considered that. "I was happy to leave London." She says after a moment. "I was happy to leave the noise of the city, but being here with my father is still so new. I don't know." She clasps her hands together. "I don't know about any of it."

"It's all right, miss." Mary reaches over to squeeze her hand. "It'll be all right."

 Her hand, slightly calloused, with nails short and clean from scrubbing dishes and floors, is reassuring, a warmth upon Abigail's soul. She holds it, letting it soothe her.

 

*  *  *  

 

The next day they sit again in the garden, and Mary talks a little more, of what life is like on the island, how terribly seasick she was the first time she came over from England. 'I was very small, you see," She confides, "But big enough to be sick all over me mam."

Abigail laughs, and it doesn't strike her until later that she hasn't laughed like that in quite some time.

"Where is your mother now?" She inquires, reaching for her tea.

"Oh...she died the next year of a fever." Mary's tone is matter-of-fact so Abigail doesn't reach for her, doesn't hold her to comfort her as she suddenly wishes to.

Instead she nods. "My mother is gone too." Life would have been different, if her mother had lived, or she had always thought. But all of a sudden she's not so sure. It is easy for wives to bow to their husband's wishes. She remembers her mother doing just that when she was small. What made her think it would be different now?

 

 *  *  *

 

The day of the trial, Abigail sits in a corner of her room, her back very straight and stiff against the wallpaper. She lets her mind go blank, letting the shadows of the room fill every crevice of her mind so that when the knock comes quietly at her door she startles.

"It's just me." Mary whispers, coming into her room. "I thought you might...oh!" She catches sight of Abigail sitting on the floor. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." Abigail says, though she means  _I don't know, I don't know if I will ever be all right again_. She doesn't know what to say.

Mary comes over to sit on the floor beside her. She speaks and it doesn't matter what she says, Abigail just focuses on her words, and the way her hands feel, and slowly she's present in her body once more, she's solid and here, and then she turns, and Mary's face is very close to hers and her eyes are sweetly concerned and her mouth is so very close and Abigail knows that she would like to kiss this girl. 

It's the strongest desire she has had in a long time, fluttering to life. She lets it breathe in her breast, hoping one day it takes flight.

Mary squeezes her hand, smiles. "I told you it will be all right."

Abigail smiles back and, for once, just this once, lets herself believe her.

 


End file.
